SIX
It sure is amazing how badly you want to do good after you’ve done something bad. Teddy came home from work that night, and for whatever reason, he came in through the back door, not the front, so he saw my new scooter leaning up against the side of the house. I didn’t lie, I told him the money to buy it came from selling my toys. I just didn’t tell him that the money should have gone to Jesus instead. Sure, I felt guilty after I said it, and that guilt gnawed at me all through supper, right through our nightly game of Scrabble (so that I was even
glad
when I lost). Stayed with me through school the next day, too, so that when school let out and I had to go to the first meeting of the Sunshine Sisters, I didn’t even say
crap
on the inside.
Miss Simon was waiting in the cafeteria, looking smart in a fancy suit with what I knew from listening to the Jackson girls was a pencil skirt, the fabric probably tweed. She stood with her hands folded in front of her while two teenage helpers took the shoulders of us little kids and put us up against the wall like crooks in a lineup.
I stood with my arms tucked behind me, the bricks cool against my butt, doing what all the other Little Sisters were doing—looking at the Big Sisters (though I was humming a little and I don’t think anybody else was doing that). Boy, those Big Sisters sure were a clean, respectable bunch, with their clothes pretty and matching and their hair all shiny and held back in ponytails or with ribbon headbands. I couldn’t say the same about the rest of us. Me especially.
At least once every season, Mrs. Jackson came out on the steps when I was in their yard and handed me a bag or two of hand-me-downs. I’d bring them home and Teddy would have me bring them to Mrs. Fry, who tugged each item over my head, then made me stand still while she poked straight pins up and down and around the seams so she could “fit them right,” even if when she got done, they didn’t.
Not that I cared one way or another. That is, until I realized that the Big Sisters were watching us, just like we were watching them, and I looked down. Man, how could I not have noticed until then that the hem of my red, white, and blue plaid dress was down past my knees on one side, and up above them on the other? Or that Jolene’s old supposed-to-be-white-but-now-gray sweater was stretched like taffy? I turned in the toes of Jennifer’s scuffed brown shoes and sank closer to the wall.
Back when I was still with my ma, I had long hair halfway down my back—my waist if I stretched it out—but I wanted short hair like hers. So I got ahold of the scissors one morning while she slept, and I cut it short (but for a few clumps of curls I couldn’t reach in the back). When I was done, I sat sidesaddle on the edge of the bathroom sink and sang into the mirror, thinking I looked as glamorous as Donna Reed. But when Ma woke up and saw me, it was plain she didn’t think I looked nice. “Oh, all your pretty curls. Look at them. Just look at them,” she kept saying as she fished my curls out of the sink and swept more off the floor.
The next time I looked in the mirror, I didn’t think I looked beautiful anymore. I thought I looked ugly. That’s how it is when you borrow somebody else’s eyes, I guess. And that’s how it waswhen I noticed that the Big Sisters were gawking at us with pity-faces or wrinkled noses as they whispered to each other. Some of them looking like they were trying to decide which one of us might have scabies or fleas or some other dreadful health affliction that might be catchy.
Once we were all in place, Miss Simon clapped her hands to make everybody shut up, then introduced Mrs. Gaylor, who was an older lady, dressed to the nines but walking like her girdle was crushing her. Mrs. Gaylor yammered on and on about the importance of girls having positive role models and all that other hooey I already heard from Mrs. Carlton, then wound down her big blab with
It sure is amazing how badly you want to do good after you’ve done something bad. Teddy came home from work that night, and for whatever reason, he came in through the back door, not the front, so he saw my new scooter leaning up against the side of the house. I didn’t lie, I told him the money to buy it came from selling my toys. I just didn’t tell him that the money should have gone to Jesus instead. Sure, I felt guilty after I said it, and that guilt gnawed at me all through supper, right through our nightly game of Scrabble (so that I was even
glad
when I lost). Stayed with me through school the next day, too, so that when school let out and I had to go to the first meeting of the Sunshine Sisters, I didn’t even say
crap
on the inside.
Miss Simon was waiting in the cafeteria, looking smart in a fancy suit with what I knew from listening to the Jackson girls was a pencil skirt, the fabric probably tweed. She stood with her hands folded in front of her while two teenage helpers took the shoulders of us little kids and put us up against the wall like crooks in a lineup.
I stood with my arms tucked behind me, the bricks cool against my butt, doing what all the other Little Sisters were doing—looking at the Big Sisters (though I was humming a little and I don’t think anybody else was doing that). Boy, those Big Sisters sure were a clean, respectable bunch, with their clothes pretty and matching and their hair all shiny and held back in ponytails or with ribbon headbands. I couldn’t say the same about the rest of us. Me especially.
At least once every season, Mrs. Jackson came out on the steps when I was in their yard and handed me a bag or two of hand-me-downs. I’d bring them home and Teddy would have me bring them to Mrs. Fry, who tugged each item over my head, then made me stand still while she poked straight pins up and down and around the seams so she could “fit them right,” even if when she got done, they didn’t.
Not that I cared one way or another. That is, until I realized that the Big Sisters were watching us, just like we were watching them, and I looked down. Man, how could I not have noticed until then that the hem of my red, white, and blue plaid dress was down past my knees on one side, and up above them on the other? Or that Jolene’s old supposed-to-be-white-but-now-gray sweater was stretched like taffy? I turned in the toes of Jennifer’s scuffed brown shoes and sank closer to the wall.
Back when I was still with my ma, I had long hair halfway down my back—my waist if I stretched it out—but I wanted short hair like hers. So I got ahold of the scissors one morning while she slept, and I cut it short (but for a few clumps of curls I couldn’t reach in the back). When I was done, I sat sidesaddle on the edge of the bathroom sink and sang into the mirror, thinking I looked as glamorous as Donna Reed. But when Ma woke up and saw me, it was plain she didn’t think I looked nice. “Oh, all your pretty curls. Look at them. Just look at them,” she kept saying as she fished my curls out of the sink and swept more off the floor.
The next time I looked in the mirror, I didn’t think I looked beautiful anymore. I thought I looked ugly. That’s how it is when you borrow somebody else’s eyes, I guess. And that’s how it waswhen I noticed that the Big Sisters were gawking at us with pity-faces or wrinkled noses as they whispered to each other. Some of them looking like they were trying to decide which one of us might have scabies or fleas or some other dreadful health affliction that might be catchy.
Once we were all in place, Miss Simon clapped her hands to make everybody shut up, then introduced Mrs. Gaylor, who was an older lady, dressed to the nines but walking like her girdle was crushing her. Mrs. Gaylor yammered on and on about the importance of girls having positive role models and all that other hooey I already heard from Mrs. Carlton, then wound down her big blab with
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